Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

13 Responses to “Half the Nation’s Uninsured Live in Just 116 Counties”

This is a misleading statistic. From wikipedia, at the April 2010 census 130M people live in the 100 most populous counties. That is 42% of the population. I don’t have a breakdown for the 25% of all the uninsured. Many people just don’t get how populated urban areas are. I don’t even consider myself urban and am from a county of 1.75M. LA County, with 9.8M residents would be the 11th biggest state in the country. Bigger than 40 states.

There are also lots of low-income and poor people in cities. And those people tend to not have insurance. Doesn’t take a lot of math to follow that a large percentage of uninsured are in urban areas.

From the lower end of the top 5 and raw population, Maricopa Cty AZ, San Diego Cty & OC, CA are doing better than some of the other large counties. Maricopa, I’d guess based on demography, but at 13% > 65 it is not ‘more retired’ than the US as a whole. More effort than I’m willing to put in to properly analyze.

However, what the government is doing is focusing on areas with lots of uninsured. Should a government worker go door to door to try to enroll people in insurance in rural SD? Or should they canvas densely populated neighborhoods, and run town hall type meetings there. I wonder when this effort started, as the study was funded by the AP. Spinning the story as it is focuses people on ‘why so many uninsured in these counties’ instead of how best to lower the number of uninsured in those counties.

This is an example of bad journalism. The article tells us that half the uninsured live in 116 counties. The obvious piece of information one would need to make sense of this would be the percentage of the population of the country living in those counties. Are the uninsured under or over represented?

OK, the health guys have their targets. Set up a task force in each of those neighborhoods and sign up everyone to the new health insurance scheme. Explain, cajole, convince EVERYONE to sign up and get proper medical care! You’ve got a public health issue of mega proportions on your hands.
Wait till the relative with open-TB comes over and no-one dares to go to the doctor “because it’s so expensive”. Totally, absolutely, a matter of national security to get those neighborhood folks covered and assured proper care. Who the heck allowed this to happen?!

If one thinks that “insurance” is the ticket to solve the mess we have created for ourselves (along with unrealistic expectations) pertaining to health care, they need to take a few refresher courses in human behavior and economics.

anywhere there is poor the use of ER’s is THE way they go. i know, that is my work area. they don’t have money, but they go ER’s for colds, runny noses, sprains, aches, you name it. and all that talk about Private Insurance paying for ER visits. Blue Cross has two kinds of ER visits. i found that out going to the ER after getting hit. Such a scam how Health Ins. Co. screw those that pay, ands crew those that work. we pay for the poor’s ER use and everyone else’s, by the way. the scam called health insurance is not health care. Single Payer is the only way to save money, with the Big Bad Gov forcing prices. only through Gov mass purchasing of Health care will we save any money, which Bought Gov. won’t do.

But we will go Obama/Romneycare first to feed Pharma, Big Hospitals, all the other Big Co.s at the taxpayer’s wallet. If the VA can have Single Payer, why can the rest of us.

so we will destroy/bankrupt America with what Health Insurance(not Healthcare) we have before Private Business will let Government start Single Payer. and get better health care results with lower costs. oh i shouldn’t say things like that, cause that is “socialism” and that’s not allowed in America, except when it’s for the Rich/bailouts/banks,Pharma, Tax laws,. Companies that rule America aren’t about to give up the Golden Goose until they kill that goose.

and now that goose is about cooked. the Middle Class is about gone. I didn’t live in the Great Depression, but this era reads like the onset of another Great Depression, not just a Great Recession.

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About Barry Ritholtz

Ritholtz has been observing capital markets with a critical eye for 20 years. With a background in math & sciences and a law school degree, he is not your typical Wall St. persona. He left Law for Finance, working as a trader, researcher and strategist before graduating to asset managementRead More...

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